Pioneering Career Women of the Twentieth Century
Non-fiction
Methuen, £9.99
ISBN 0-413-66350-7
‘We used to sew them up with very coarse gut so that if the man did want intercourse it jolly well hurt him.’
HELEN BROOK
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Here in their own words are the life stories of ten remarkable British women, each of whom pursued a successful career long before ‘career women’ were the norm. From Helen Brook, family planning pioneer and founder of the Brook Advisory Centre, to Betty Boothroyd, first woman Speaker of the House of Commons, their stories are inspiring examples of courage, enthusiasm and determination. Their private and public experiences vividly describe the challenges and conflicts they each faced as they went against the grain for women of their generation by entering into a ‘man’s world’.
Exploring the ‘lost years’ between the suffragettes and the feminists, the lives of these ten women shed fascinating light on a key period in the emergence of women into the workplace.
Interviews with:
Josephine Barnes, consultant gynaecologist
Betty Boothroyd, politician
Helen Brook, family planning pioneer
Hilda Brown, factory inspector
Lucy Faithfull, social services director
Livia Gollanz, publisher
Jean Graham Hall, high court judge
Una Kroll, medicine
Sheila Parkinson, special operations
Mary Smith, housing
‘Margaret Thatcher never advanced any women at all!’
Listen to the life story of BETTY BOOTHROYD, first woman to hold the post of Speaker in the history of Parliament
‘We used to sew them up with very coarse gut, so that if the man did want intercourse it jolly well hurt him!’
Listen to the life story of HELEN BROOK, family planning pioneer and founder of the Brook Clinics
You can listen to all these interviews or read the transcripts at the National Life Stories in the British Library Sound Archive
